DIGEST: Marie Callo-Claridad v. Philip Esteban

MARIE CALLO-CLARIDAD v. PHILIP RONALD P. ESTEBAN

and TEODORA ALYN ESTEBAN

G.R. NO. 191567, March 20, 2013

FACTS:

The petitioner is the mother of the late Cheasare Armani "Chase" Callo Claridad, whose lifeless but bloodied body was discovered in the evening of February 27, 2007 between vehicles parked at the carport of a residential house located at No.10 Cedar Place, Ferndale Homes, Quezon City. Allegedly, Chase had been last seen alive with respondent Philip Ronald P. Esteban (Philip) according Chase's sister, Ariane, and their two household helpers, Marivic Guray and Michelle Corpus, less than an hour before the discovery of his lifeless body.

The Office of the City Prosecutor (OCP) of Quezon City dismissed the complaint. The OCP observed that there was lack of evidence, motive, and circumstantial evidence sufficient to charge Philip with homicide, much less murder and that the circumstantial evidence could not link Philip to the crime. On petition for review, the Secretary of Justice affirmed the dismissal of the complaint.

The petitioner elevated the matter to the CA by petition for review under Rule 43, Rules of Court. The CA, however, dismissed the petition for review.

Hence, this appeal by petition for review on certiorari.

ISSUE:

1.    Whether Rule 43 was the proper remedy for resolutions issued by the Secretary of Justice.

RULING:

1.            NO. The SC held that Rule 43 is not the proper remedy for assailing resolutions of the Secretary of Justice. It stated that it was a grave mistake that immediately called for the outright dismissal of the petition. The filing of a petition for review under Rule 43 to review the Secretary of Justice's resolution on the determination of probable cause was an improper remedy. Indeed, the CA had no appellate jurisdiction vis-à-vis the Secretary of Justice.

A petition for review under Rule 43 is a mode of appeal to be taken only to review the decisions, resolutions or awards by the quasi-judicial officers, agencies or bodies, particularly those specified in Section 1 of Rule 43. In the matter before us, however, the Secretary of Justice was not an officer performing a quasi-judicial function. In reviewing the findings of the OCP of Quezon City on the matter of probable cause, the Secretary of Justice performed an essentially executive function to determine whether the crime alleged against the respondents was committed, and whether there was probable cause to believe that the respondents were guilty thereof.

On the other hand, the courts could intervene in the Secretary of Justice’s determination of probable cause only through a special civil action for certiorari. That happens when the Secretary of Justice acts in a limited sense like a quasi-judicial officer of the executive department exercising powers akin to those of a court of law. But the requirement for such intervention was still for the petitioner to demonstrate clearly that the Secretary of Justice committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction. Unless such a clear demonstration is made, the intervention is disallowed in deference to the doctrine of separation of powers. As the Court has postulated in Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. (Metrobank) v. Tobias III: 

Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the courts have no right to directly decide matters over which full discretionary authority has been delegated to the Executive Branch of the Government, or to substitute their own judgments for that of the Executive Branch, represented in this case by the Department of Justice. The settled policy is that the courts will not interfere with the executive determination of probable cause for the purpose of filing an information, in the absence of grave abuse of discretion. That abuse of discretion must be so patent and gross as to amount to an evasion of a positive duty or a virtual refusal to perform a duty enjoined by law or to act at all in contemplation of law, such as where the power is exercised in an arbitrary and despotic manner by reason of passion or hostility. x x x